Thursday, May 5, 2011

Blue Willow Plates in Tempera

I first saw this lesson at the Use Your Colored Pencils blog, and knew I would be using it someday. Thanks Anne! The supplies needed are minimal: white paper plates, tempera in blue/white/black, brushes and water. We practiced mixing shades and tints of blue for our designs. The cross-curricular opportunities range from poetry and storytelling, to the culture of China and its influence on pottery through out the world.

We looked at a piece of Blue Willow china and discussed what images we saw on the plate. I then told the children about the legend which the pattern illustrates. To help remember what we saw, and to help everyone to chose elements to use in their designs, I shared the following poem:

'Two birds flying high,
A Chinese vessel, sailing by.
A bridge with three men, sometimes four,
A willow tree, hanging o'er.
A Chinese temple, there it stands,
Built upon the river sands.
An apple tree, with apples on,
A crooked fence to end my song.'

They were asked to chose one, or a few of the elements, but some did even more! The children sketched lightly in pencil first, and then began to paint. I reminded them that the border was an important part of their design as well (the ridges of the paper plate can aid them in creating simple border designs.) Great job guys! I love them all!

If you might try a Blue Willow lesson, here are some great links to go with your planning:

8 comments:

I keep saying it - we art teachers have parallel brains! I have the book "The Willow Pattern Story" on my desk at school and a new package of heavy white paper plates in my closet, and am just trying to get my kids finished up on a couple of things so we can do this lesson.

Phyl I've done this with kids up to year 7 with no problems. There's a few animated stories on line that I've used on the interactive white board and they enjoyed the animation and the gards chasing them down so don't worry about the boys!

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